Panic at the Disco announced that they will be splitting in half, with chief songwriter Ryan Ross taking bass player Jon Walker and heading out "on a new musical excursion." Frontman Brandon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith will continue on as Panic at the Disco, and the pair will still play their scheduled dates on the Blink-182 reunion tour (with two replacement members, of course).
Ross and Walker haven't named their new group, nor have they given any indication what it would sound like. But Urie and Smith will reportedly finish up the already-in-progress third album. But what will all this new music sound like? For those answers, we take a look at John Norris' conversation with the band just prior to the release of their last album. Since Pretty. Odd. had such a strong Beatles influence, Norris asked the group to name their favorite Fab Four songs, and the individual results could be very telling.
Urie and Smith both selected more psychedelic entries in the Beatles catalog (not unlike "Nine in the Afternoon"), while Walker and Ross went with more conventional tunes. Both "Octopus Garden" and "I Am the Walrus" are pop-minded tracks with big choruses — the same types of songs that make up the band's debut A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (like "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off"). So it seems like the band called Panic at the Disco will continue along the lines laid out on Pretty. Odd. and the Ross/Walker combination might be a little more straightforward.
For Panic fans, we want to know: Will you follow both new bands or are you loyal to a particular member?